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Ag-gag bills: criminalizing whistle-blowing on factory farms
by *CA* Flickr Creative Commons
From my column in Communities @ Washington Times
WASHINGTON, DC, April 2, 2013- A number of recent polls show that a majority of Americans think that animals raised for food deserve some level of protection from harm and exploitation. Even self- described “meat-eating conservative Republican” Mary Matalin has sided with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to fight against so-called “ag-gag” bills.
(Matalin has gone as far as filming a new ad for PETA, and the unusual alliance has apparently already paid off: Arkansas lawmakers have just abandoned a proposed “ag-gag” bill.)
“Ag-gag” bills are laws that criminalize whistleblowing on factory farms. Even though ag-gag bills differ from state to state, they share a few common elements including criminalizing the taking of pictures or video at a factory farms without authorization, banning investigators from taking jobs at factory farms, and compelling mandatory reporting within short timelines that would make it impossible to establish punishable patterns of abuse.
Related articles
- A Utah Woman Is Being Prosecuted for Filming a Slaughterhouse from a Public Street (motherboard.vice.com)
- Ag-Gag laws seek to put factory farms off-limits to whistle-blowers (thehill.com)
- Why It’s Literally Sickening to Ban Whistleblowers from Exposing Cruelty at Factory Farms (alternet.org)
- First Ag-Gag charges brought… and then dropped (salon.com)
lasesana 
Reblogged this on Time for Action.
Animals raised for food definitely deserve protection. It’s a farmer’s responsibility to raise them as well as possible before they’re sold.